Linked List: January 17, 2015

Saturday, 17 January 2015

BiteMyApple.co 

My thanks to BiteMyApple for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. BiteMyApple is a retail website offering a wide range of accessories for the iPad, iPhone, and other Apple devices — every one of which is a successful Kickstarter project. It’s a fascinating premise for a store, and a great selection of elegant well-designed products.

Back to the Nimitz 

Speaking of the classic Mac era, Zac Bir has rediscovered the joy of the greatest keyboard ever made, the Apple Extended Keyboard II:

I quickly came to the realization that the Model M and the CODE were right out. The Model M because of its 101-key layout. I didn’t want to have to do too much training to figure out where and how I’d fit in an affordance for the Option key, and the CODE, while ostensibly supporting a Mac layout via DIP switches, felt a little bit like capitulating to a default-Windows-world. I quite like the WASD v2 with the available Mac layout (and I encourage you to play with their online keyboard designer. Colored keycaps! Fonts! Layouts!), but the price was a bit off-putting. I looked (very) briefly at the Unicomp, and quickly closed my browser tab. The aesthetics left more than a little to be desired. So I found myself back in the 90’s, looking for an Apple Extended Keyboard II. After reading an article about making your own USB adapter for the AEKII, the bug was planted, and the deal was sealed.

Building your own USB-ADB adapter isn’t necessary, of course — I’ve been using a Griffin iMate ever since Macs went to USB. What’s funny is that the translucent Bondi Blue iMate now looks more dated than the AEKII.

About Boxes From Vintage Mac Applications 

Nice collection from Riccardo Mori. One of the gems: a prerelease beta of ResEdit that solicits bug reports by postal mail.

Paul Thurrott Launches New Site 

Paul Thurrott:

Hi, I’m Paul Thurrott. You may remember me from such web sites as Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows and Windows IT Pro, and from podcasts like Windows Weekly and What the Tech. And with that Simpsons reference out of the way, I’d like to welcome you to my new web site, thurrott.com. If you enjoyed the goings-on at the SuperSite, you’re going to feel right at home here.

Here’s Thurrott saying goodbye to SuperSite for Windows, which he founded by himself 16 years ago:

Sixteen and a half years ago, I hopped on a plane in Phoenix and headed off to a Windows NT 5.0 Reviewer’s Workshop in Seattle. Little did I know that this event would forever change my life: It led to the creation of what I thought would be a one-off web site first called the Windows NT 5.0 SuperSite, which of course then grew into something much bigger. But today, I’m saying goodbye to the SuperSite and heading off on a new adventure.